Berbel Franse is a program manager at Healthy Cities Illawarra, a not-for-profit addressing social, environmental and economic challenges affecting health inequity. Berbel is the co-ordinator of Food Fairness Illawarra and the manager of the Wollongong Online Farmers Market (WOFM).
A partnership between Fair Food Illawarra and Healthy Cities, the idea for WOFM was sparked earlier this year by Berbel and Nat Batger, an intern at Healthy Cities and now WOFM coordinator. The online platform brings together a growing number of local growers and producers to give the local community convenient access to locally grown and made products.
Berbel found some time in her busy schedule to chat to me.
Why start Wollongong Online Farmers Market?
Our aim is to grow a more resilient, sustainable and local food economy because, given the difficulties of the last three years, we need to support each other, especially our local producers. It was initiated to grow our local food system.
One of the goals that underpins the Food Fairness mission is availability, so we started playing around with the idea of a farmers market. When we considered the complexities of an in-person farmers market, particularly for the producers, we realised that an online market would be more practical.
When did did the market launch?
We launched the online platform about six months ago, which was very exciting. The last six months have proven that our current food system is so vulnerable to supply change disruptions because of Covid and the effects of climate change. It is more important than ever to directly invest in our local food systems.
How does an online market benefit local producers?
It’s the producers that we want to do it for, because if we don’t support our producers we may lose them and that would be absolutely devastating. We came across Open Food Network, which is an Australian software platform designed to allow producers to list their products and prices online. This has formed the basis of our own platform. With the OFN, producers can list their product and explain how it’s grown or made, and whether it's organic certified or plastic free. Transparency is very important to us.
This approach, where producers can go directly to customers, is more common in Victoria, and allows producers to outsource the marketing of their products, allowing more focus on growing and harvesting. Customers, community and producers need to come together to build a resilient food network.
WOFM also gives the grower an additional food distribution channel, which allows them to reach new customers, which is fantastic. They also take more of a percentage home than they would with a regular retailer.
So how does it work?
Our current food system is broken and if we can’t fix it, we need to design a new one. So this is a way of shopping differently. On the website you can actually see how much goes to us and how much goes to the producer.
The “three way handshake” is taken from the OFN model. It means that 10% transaction fee is paid by the customer and 10% order fee is paid by the producer to maintain the online marketplace. So 20% of the total goes to coordinating the market and 80% to the producers.
Every Tuesday, our producers update their stock on the WOFN platform. Every Wednesday we open the order cycle showing what’s available and ready to harvest the following Thursday. The online shop is open between Wednesday and the following Monday night for a Thursday morning producer delivery and afternoon customer pick-up.
To keep costs as low as possible we are working out of the Healthy Cities office in Fairy Meadow. We have about eight volunteers who help with packing orders. I love that young people are involved in such a welcoming space and we have the opportunity to share our knowledge of the food system. We then have fair food advocates taking their skills into the next phase of their lives.
So who’s on board?
We source from the Illawarra and surrounding local government areas. We have local fresh produce from Frank’s Blue Acres at Dapto, Sarah at Popes Produce Woonona and smaller backyard growers like Penny’s Plants and Produce.
We have our favourite local apples from Glenbernie, bread from local bakery Pane Paradiso and dairy products from Highlands and Jamberoo Valley.
You can get meals from Jules at Balinese Spice Magic and the Eve Project.
We have new makers and growers coming on board all the time.
A word from producer Penny (from Penny’s Plants and Produce) in praise of WOFM:
“When I heard about WOFM, I was very excited as knew it was a much needed service to boost the growth of a local, sustainable food network. I do my best to grow everything as naturally as possible in my backyard using organic methods, and I am very happy to be able to share my garden’s bounty, including some more unusual fruits and vegetables.”
And a final word from Berbel:
“By shopping local, you are contributing to a more localised food system that enables shorter supply chains and a reduction in CO2 emissions, and it also means a larger proportion of revenue is retained in our local economy.”
Find out more about WOFM
